


End Of All Days

by theloverneverleaves



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mass Effect Fusion, Alternate Universe - Space, Ensemble Cast, Explicit Language, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Science Fiction, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloverneverleaves/pseuds/theloverneverleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although some might like to believe otherwise, the galaxy is ending. But some people refuse to lie down and let it happen. With nothing but a cruiser and 12 prototype fighters, Stacker Pentecost assembles a team of the best and brightest humanity has to offer, ready to take on the odds - whatever the price. But suicide missions don't come without their surprises, and some things were never meant to go to plan. And no one ever planned on how close the crew that helped the save the galaxy might be. </p>
<p>This is the story of the SSV Hong Kong, and how they helped to cancel the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Pacific Rim done Mass Effect style. The story starts at the end of Mass Effect 2, and runs right through the events of Mass Effect 3, however, it's a parallel timeline. Events from all the games may be referenced, but there won't be any major 'crossovers' per se. You also do _not_ need any knowledge of the Mass Effect universe to read this. I'll do my best to outline the major concepts introduced, but the story runs separate to the events of the game, so you don't need to know much at all. If anything is completely unclear, the [Mass Effect Wiki](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex) is a good place to check. Enjoy!

The galaxy is bigger than we thought it was.

A century ago, going much further than Mars would have been unthinkable. Even as much as forty years ago, getting out of the solar system and into the galaxy was nothing but a distant dream. But then humanity found the Prothean Archives on Mars - archives of a civilisation long dead, with the key to technologies far better than our own. The key to faster than light travel, to the science of mass effect fields, to element zero, to a thousand things that humanity would have taken hundreds of years to develop alone. When Pluto’s moon was melted away to reveal a Mass Relay, a piece of technology linking into a network across the galaxy, humanity finally found a way out into the galaxy. Only the final frontier had already been settled. The aliens were already there.

Forty years after First Contact, Admiral David Anderson couldn’t help but wonder if humanity didn’t wish it had stayed with its head in the sand. After all, it was doing a fine job of doing exactly that right now.

“Sir, there’s a Mr. Pentecost here to see you,” the voice came over the comm, and Anderson resisted a sigh. He’d gotten sick of bureaucracy lately. People weren’t even allowed to knock on his office door anymore, but there wasn't much he could do about that.

“Send him in.”

Stacker Pentecost was exactly as Anderson remembered him. Strong, with a steel in his spine few could match. Anderson still said losing that man from the Alliance military was one of the worst things that had ever happened to them. The Alliance was all humanity had. The separate navies and armies of centuries gone by were dead and gone, combined into one massive force, designed for the space age. Marines and navy personnel for the hundreds of starships humanity had designed, the Alliance ruled it all. Whilst Stacker might be younger than him, the two had practically grown up together. And when they'd gotten older, they’d enlisted together, trained together. They’d only separated because of a botched mission and some differences in opinion. Anderson, it seemed, was more forgiving of the brass than Stacker ever was. But the man worked on principal, not orders. Anderson had always found it easier to do as he was told.

They greeted like old friends, and it took Anderson a moment to remind himself that this was all about business. He’d asked Stacker to see him. Pentecost was the only man he could trust with this sort of assignment. It wasn’t even a real assignment. Which was exactly the point.

“Heard they locked up your protégée. Shepard,” Pentecost stated, taking a seat in front of Anderson’s desk. He sighed. Commander Shepard was a complex story if there ever was one, but she was bloody hero as far as Anderson was concerned. Shepard was the one that had been at the front lines for the last few years. Ever since they’d discovered what was coming.

Ever since they’d discovered the Reapers.

Anderson saw a little of Stacker in Shepard too. She hadn’t been willing to let Alliance regs stand in the way of stopping the Reapers, the sentient machines coming from dark space to destroy all life in the galaxy. Just your average problems, really, machines the size of a city emerging from nowhere, threatening to wipe out all sentient, organic life in the galaxy. Of course it was in their era. Anderson couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if the apocalyptic machines had waited a hundred years or so.

But then there would have been no Shepard. No Pentecost either. And Anderson knew that the galaxy needed them both.

“It’s why I asked you here, Stacker. The galaxy might want to call Shepard delusional, but I know she’s not. I’m hoping you know it too,” he levelled with the man briefly.

“Seen some strange things lately. Between what happened at the Citadel and the Collectors…”

Two of the best known events in recent history. The Citadel was the centre of the galaxy, the seat of the galactic government - the Council - along with every major organization in space. Not only that, but the massive, ancient space station was home to billions of people, from all races. And a Reaper had effectively sailed into the middle of the five gigantic arms of the station, attempting to open a gate for hundreds more of its kind to flow out of dark space. They’d stopped it, but only just. Only at the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives. Only because of Shepard.

The galaxy owed Shepard for that. They owed her for the Collectors too. A strange insect like race of aliens that no one knew much about, other than they came from beyond the Omega-4 relay, out in the Terminus systems - the part of space the Council did not control. Even Anderson didn’t know what lay beyond the relay, but everyone knew that ships that were not those of the Collectors that passed through the relay never came back. It was a suicide mission. No one came back. No one but Shepard, who had destroyed the Collector homeworld, the homeworld of the aliens that had been abducting whole colonies of humans, settlements on small planets out on the edge of space. Colonies that weren’t always defended, just gone. And Shepard had defended them. She’d won. She’d given everything to stop the Reapers, who she’d insisted were working with the Collectors.

And now she was on trial. And the galaxy wouldn’t survive the void.

“I’ve got a little assignment for you, if you’re interested.”

“I left the Alliance, Anderson, we both know that.”

“This isn’t for the Alliance,” Anderson assured him. “This is for me. It’ll be dangerous. I’ll give you supplies and whatever funding I can, but once you’re out there, you’ll be on your own. If anyone tries to arrest you, there's only going to be so much I can do to help.”

“Sounds like my kind of mission,” Stacker deadpanned, and Anderson couldn’t help but smile grimly, before pulling a file out of his desk, and pushing it across the desk.

“How much do you remember about the PPDC program?”


	2. A New Start

If there was one thing Stacker Pentecost could do, it was get a team together. The man was a natural born leader, the type that inspired loyalty without a second thought, and Herc had always known that. Hell, he’d sworn it was going to get him killed one day or another, back when they’d been in the Alliance together. Back when they’d both been pilots, instead of just one of them. He’d always liked Stacker, liked his morals. He’d almost wanted to follow his old friend in bailing out on the Alliance brass all those years ago, but he’d need the job, and he’d needed to keep Angela and Chuck safe. He’d needed to keep an eye on his brother, too. He'd had too many reasons to stay, and not enough to leave.

Of course, that had all gone to shit now so it wasn’t like there was a reason not to join in Stacker’s harebrained mission to rescue the galaxy from itself using a decommissioned, unsanctioned prototype the Alliance had abandoned a few years ago. Not even one prototype. Twelve of them. An Alliance Cruiser to hold it all, and a bunch of techs and crew that seemed to be equally inspired by Stacker’s bold speeches. Technically, Herc wasn’t even in the Alliance right now, despite all appearances of an Alliance ship. Some of his flight crew had come along regardless and seen fit to make sure that prototype down in the hangar bay didn’t spring a leak in the middle of combat. Herc, admittedly, felt better for someone checking it all over, because he still wasn’t entirely sure that Stacker had thought this all the way through.

They had a crew, though. They had more than a crew. Besides the mass of techs and general staff that had come to keep the cruiser flying, there were some more specialist people around. Mako was here, of course. Miss Mori was half the reason Stacker had abandoned the Alliance, Herc was sure. He’d been determined to try and give the girl a life, and the Alliance wasn’t fond of child adoptions distracting from duty. Tendo Choi had come along too, another old friend and an Alliance man that Stacker had somehow talked into defecting. Mori was acting as their head of engineering, with quite the talented team at her disposal, whilst Choi was up front in the pilot’s seat. The two of them had the ship under control and in perfect flying condition. More than under control. Herc felt better knowing they were around.

Then there was the science crew. There were plenty of rookies, lab techs and the like, but Dr Geiszler and Dr Gottleib were the leads, and the best. Or so Stacker had assured him when the two had walked on board, bickering like there were married. And Gottleib _was_ married, just not to Geiszler. His wife was on board too, of course. Something about there not being anywhere safe, and there was actually a 0.04% chance she might be safer on board.

Herc could understand wanting to keep family close, though. Half of him had wanted to tell his stupid kid to stay with the Alliance, stay on Earth, because Earth was as safe as anywhere right now and Herc didn’t want the kid in one of these shaky almost prototype things, but Chuck had kicked up a fuss until he’d gone directly to Stacker himself and told the older man he was coming and no one was stopping him. Stacker, the bastard he was, had just stood aside and let Chuck board the goddamn boat like it was a merry go round. At least they were together though. At least they were here. Herc wasn’t sure he’d be saying the same once they worked out the cargo that was slowly being fixed up in the hangar bay, but still. He’d hold onto the positives whilst they were there.

Speaking of their precious cargo, Herc sighed, leaning against the railings, watching the buzz in the hangar bay below.

Twelve prototype fighters. That was what they’d been granted. They were only a few years old, but they’d been created to the cutting edge of engineering, the best drive cores money could buy, manoeuvrable, and with plenty of firepower. A little bigger than your average fighter, but also more able to handle the firepower of bigger ships. Ships like the Reapers. Herc could still remember testing the very first one of these things, a fighter that had lovingly been called Lucky Seven. He’d got in it with his brother. They’d built twelve more of the things before the program was decommissioned. Lucky Seven was long gone.

Herc hadn't really expected to see the remaining twelve again, though. He’d assumed they’d been dumped in the Pacific or something. Scrapped, turned into tractors and skyscrapers or something. Spare parts. After all, it wasn’t like they were much good. Although Herc had never thought there was anything wrong with the fighters themselves. The PPDC class ships were near flawless. But they came with a catch. Someone had decided that teamwork, the combined skills of two pilots, would make for better fighters, better results. They were two man ships, as opposed to the traditional one man setup. That was why they were PPDC class. Paired Pilot Drive Control. But the thing about having two pilots was you had better be damn sure you could work with your copilot under pressure.

Him and Scott? They’d cracked. And that crack had been severe enough for someone to question the viability of putting two pilots in one machine. Herc had warned Stacker of the flaws, even though he knew the man would remember well enough for himself. Stacker had simply said he had it under control.

Of course he did. There wasn’t much Stacker Pentecost didn’t have under control, especially not on his own damn cruiser.

So of course, the program was back on again, as soon as the hundreds of techs were satisfied the things were still flight worthy after a few years under a dust sheet. Mako was overseeing the whole operation, and if there was one thing that Stacker had taught that girl, it was dedication. She wasn’t going to release a single one of those machines unless she was absolutely sure that they were going to be better than they had been when they’d been mint new. If there were going to be casualties on this crackpot mission, it wouldn’t be because of tech failure. Not with Mako around.

“Commander Hansen.” The voice came through Herc’s mind like a bell, and he turned his head to find the woman in question, electric blue streaks in her hair and her navy boiler suit covered in grease. Herc couldn’t help but smile slightly at her formality. He’d known her for god knows how long, hell, she’d practically grown up with his kid. He'd seen her grow up too.

“Engineer Mori,” Herc replied in kind, and Mako returned his smile. She came to stand beside him, leaning on the railings, her eyes drifting to the hangar deck extending below them.

“How we holding up, Chief?” Herc asked, his gaze following hers, watching the small group of techs crawl around underneath one of the fighters. He thought he even saw Chuck down there. His son always had liked getting his hands dirty. Herc had never meant for his son to follow his footsteps, but he’d never known how to be a father after Angela died. So Chuck had ended up with the Alliance, and he’d qualified as a fighter pilot before he even turned eighteen. Kid was a prodigal. Herc had to be proud of that. Even if he was a bit of a pain in the ass most of the time. Even if part of him wished it could have been different.

Point was, even in the Alliance, Chuck had always liked getting into his fighter’s guts. No doubt he’d already picked one to pilot, despite they fact they were still working out rosters for these things. After all, they’d only launched from Earth a week ago. Tendo had wanted to run the cruiser through her paces, and Stacker was on a recruitment drive. Herc didn’t even know where in space they were right now. Didn’t really matter to him either.

“Good. She’s not exactly a new ship, but the drive core is sturdy. Shouldn’t give us much trouble.”

“And what about our science experiment down there?” Herc asked, nodding towards the hangar bay. Mako pursed her lips slightly.

“The engineering is incredible, but they have not been looked after. It will take time,” she said cautiously.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. I’d rather have us nice and safe as we go on suicide runs with Reapers,” Herc retorted flatly. He wished he was joking about that. Stacker and his crazy missions.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Mako agreed softly, a smile on her lips.

Herc might have said more, but before his mind could even begin to process a response, he found his thoughts cut off by the comms systems activating, and the familiar voice of Tendo issuing from the small speaker nearby, only just audible over the metallic screeches of the techs in the hangar bay below.

“Captain wants to see you on the bridge, Commander.” Herc sighed.

“I’ll be right up,” Herc agreed, before shooting Mako an apologetic look. She nodded once before moving towards the staircase down into the hangar bay.

“Commander Hansen,” she repeated, by way of goodbye. The continued formality couldn’t help but make Herc twitch a smile.

“Engineer Mori.”

He might have lingered longer, his eyes drifting to his son, who was apparently going over something with a few of the techs, standing at the nose of one of the fighters. But he knew that Stacker wasn’t a man for patience, and he wouldn’t have asked for him if it wasn’t important. Which meant it was important. Which meant he had better get up there.

Stepping into the elevator, Herc found himself on the cruisers massive command deck in moments, taking in the buzz of action around him. Staffing a cruiser wasn’t just about techs, engineers, scientists and pilots. It was about people. And CIC was the most important place of all. The heart of the ship, the CIC, or Combat Information Centre, was regularly staffed, with the posts around the rim of the room, and one massive desk in the middle, a hologram hovering above it. Usually it showed the galaxy map, and projections of whatever their current route was. Right now? They were scanning a planet. Which meant something was up.

Crossing the CIC, Herc headed straight up the the bridge, finding Tendo there, flicking through an array of screens laid out before him, programming in commands and making the odd request from the ship’s on board virtual interface, the cool feminine voice echoing back with a complete lack of inflection that Herc had always found more disturbing than soothing as it was designed to be. The VI had limited control of the ship’s systems, and was absolutely not sentient - Artifical Intelligence research had been banned under galactic law years ago. After all, the Quarians, a race of nomadic drifters renowned for their technical skills, had developed AIs years ago. And said AIs had rebelled and thrown them off their homeworld. The Geth were now a problem for the whole galaxy, not just the Quarians. They hadn’t been seen beyond the Perseus Veil in years, but it seemed the Reapers had a way of dragging a lot of things out into the open. Geth included.

Their pilot, however, was not alone. There was Stacker, still done up in his dress uniform like it was going out of style. Didn’t even matter that the man had quit the Alliance. He’d just stripped off the epaulettes and stuck with the look. Sometimes, Herc got the impression that Stacker Pentecost didn’t quite know who he was without that uniform.

Herc could understand the feeling, even if he was happy to lower himself to combats, boots and a shirt. But the job, the uniform… it had been his life for a long time. Hell, even this felt weird. No command, no Admirals, running on the edge with nothing but their own crew. Still felt like a military op, sure, and Anderson had dished them out with a cruiser no one would miss, sans Alliance Blue, permission to take whatever crew they needed, 12 - albeit experimental - fighters and a small puddle of cash along with a list of people willing to help them out as they scoured the galaxy. But the fact of the matter was that if they got into hot water out here, there would be no brass to back them up. Removing the red tape was as much of a blessing as it was a curse.

Looking at the expression on Stacker’s face, Herc wasn’t exactly convinced that he knew which it was either.

“What’ve we got?” Herc asked, leaning on the back of Tendo’s chair, glancing at the displays. He was still a pilot. Whilst most people might not be able to make sense of the bridge, Herc could read every one of those display and know exactly what was going on. But that didn’t stop him asking.

“Distress signal coming from Fehl Prime. Sounds pretty urgent,” Tendo informed him briefly. Herc frowned.

“Fehl Prime? Didn’t the Collectors attack that place a few months ago?”

“Yeah, whole colony went up in smoke, just like the rest. I didn’t think anyone had resettled it after everything, but this is definitely a hot one,” Tendo replied.

“So when do we get there?” Herc asked. There was a moment of silence, and Herc glanced between the pilot and his captain. Stacker was unmoving. “We _are_ going in, aren’t we?” Herc pressed.

“We don’t exactly have an away team sitting waiting for orders, Commander,” Stacker replied, falling back on formality and titles. Which meant this shit was bad and Herc didn’t think he could take it. They were outside the red tape, weren’t they? Wasn’t this exactly the sort of shit they were meant to be dealing with?

“So what, we’re just going to sail past and wish them goddamn luck? The hell we doing in the Terminus anyway, this isn’t exactly Alliance friendly space.” The Terminus systems was just another region of the galaxy. One outside of council control, and therefore a little bit of an Alliance no fly zone. But then again. Someone had put the cruiser through a vat of paint stripper. Alliance blue was long gone from the externals, replaced by a deeper, navy blue. Herc still thought their first mistake was in not renaming the goddamn ship, but technically since they weren’t under Alliance registration…

Stacker didn’t answer the question, which only made Herc want to punch something.

“Dammit Stacker, we can’t just leave them to die down there. People don’t send out distress signals for kicks,” Herc growled.

“I’m well aware of that, but the fact remains that we don’t exactly have people to spare on a mission like that. This isn’t the Alliance, Herc, I don’t have a squad of marines on the crew deck waiting for orders, polishing their rifles. We’re a fighter unit, nothing more.”

“Pilots or not, Alliance still gives all ranking officers combat training,” Herc pointed out. Stacker raised an eyebrow.

“Are you suggesting you go down yourself, Hansen?” Stacker replied calmly. Herc sighed, frustrated.

“Hell, if the options are pretending we didn't hear anything or go down there and try and help, I know what I’ll do every time. ‘Sides. If they’re fightin’, they gotta be fightin’ over something, right? Could be worth lookin’ into for this big fancy no-red-lines mission of yours,” Herc advised coolly.

“I don’t exactly have many officers aboard this vessel, Hansen.”

“You got me, you got Chuck, and you know damn well Mako can take the heat,” Herc reminded him. Stacker glanced away for a moment. Herc knew why. The man still didn’t like the thought of the woman in open combat - after all, he’d practically forced her into becoming an engineer, for fear she did exactly what Chuck had and follow her father. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t talented. Stacker had trained her himself, Herc knew that for a fact, and the girl was deadly with a heavy pistol. She’d be okay. They’d all be okay. Because as much as Herc might want to hide Chuck away someplace safe, he also knew Chuck could handle it.

“I need you here,” Stacker reminded him. There was an unspoken statement there. Herc had already guessed that Stacker wanted him to pilot one of those fighters in the hangar bay. They didn’t exactly have many pilots as it was. A few, yes, but not many, and Herc was the only one with experience of the fighters in question.

“All we need to do is look, Stacker. If things are too heavy for us down there, then we just boost the signal and hope someone else can help. ‘S that simple.”

There was a long pause, and then the curve of Stacker’s shoulders seemed to bow.

“Tell Engineer Mori and Lieutenant Hansen to suit up. As soon as we hit atmo, I want a shuttle away. Let’s keep this fast and clean. Mr Choi, now would be the time to test out our stealth systems.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Herc replied, turning away, trying to ignore the small sense of victory he felt for it all. He only hoped to god that this was worth it.


	3. Falling With Style

“You wanna hurry it up there, old man?”

“Hey, this is a fine art, kid, you oughta be fucking grateful I can even do this.”

“Leave the whining for later, yeah Yance?”

Raleigh Becket released another burst of pistol shots from where he was, ducked behind cover only ten feet or so from his brother’s side. Each one of the rounds hit their marks, burrowing into armour and taking more power out of kinetic barriers and shields designed to keep someone from dying. Even though that was exactly what Raleigh wanted to happen, and not even in a sadistic way, more in a it’s-them-or-me sort of way. And Raleigh still had every intention of walking off of this planet, towing his older brother with him if needs be. He was still trying to catch up with what went wrong. They’d come out here with a full squad of marines at their disposal. That squad had been reduced to three. He still didn’t know where these guys were coming from, hadn’t really stopped to ask questions about it either. He’d just known they had to keep moving. Getting into the security room for the complex was their best shot.

And of course, it was locked. An abandoned colony that had lost its entire population in the space of a few hours thanks to the collectors, literally leaving food lying on the table, and someone had still remember to lock up fucking security. Reasonable, Raleigh knew it probably had an auto lock on it, and after a few months without contact, it had probably done just that. But jesus, was nothing ever going to be easy?

He supposed easy didn’t come along with an N7 assignment, though.

N7 was the best of the best. There were Alliance marines, and then there were N-rank marines. Special ops, the most talented in the service, even getting an N1 rank was admirable. N-ranks were symbols of endurance, determination and skill. Many people dropped out before even making N1 status.

Raleigh and Yancy Becket were N7 status. The absolute best. The best the Alliance had to offer. Some of the best the galaxy had to offer. And part of that meant the dangerous missions. Part of that was making the journey into the Terminus, landing on some backwater planet and going in for intel that was apparently vital to the prolonged existence of the universe. Part of that was pretty much expecting the worst, because whatever you expected, things were going to be worse than even that. There were no such things as easy jobs on N7 missions.

Still, what Raleigh wouldn’t give to know how he’d pissed someone off this time.

His barriers took another hit as Raleigh ducked back behind cover, and he swore, before standing, shifting his stance and feeling the ripple of a mass effect field as he pushed his arm forward, reaching for the power in his system like you reached for a star in your mind. The blue fields that shimmered around him glowed just like always, but there was a certain benefit to being able to generate your own mass effect fields. Such as the shockwave that rippled down the hallway, blasting aside whoever was dumb enough to be standing in the way. Raleigh ducked back behind cover, breathing out, taking a minute to regain himself. Generating mass effect fields wasn’t exactly easy. It took years of training and a few lucky chances to even have the ability, to call yourself biotic. But the effects on the front line were unmatched, and for all the bother he’d gotten for being biotic, it certainly did him a few favours. Such as now.

“Got it!” Yancy announced, and Raleigh didn’t hesitate, taking the seconds of peace he’d won them as the other guys picked themselves up off the floor to duck through the door, the metal panels sliding shut as they backed through. Raleigh stared at the green glowing lock in the middle of the door, hesitating slightly before shooting it out.

“Well, I hope there’s a back door in here,” Yancy muttered, stalking away.

“Hey, don’t worry. If we need to, we’ll just blow out the window.”

“Rals, we’re on the fourth floor,” Yancy advised. Raleigh waved his hand vaguely, loosing his grip on his pistol.

“Eh, details.”

Raleigh watched as his brother crossed the room to one of the security consoles, pulling up the logs, doing whatever it was he did with that tech shit. As much as Raleigh had always been close with his brother, they’d always been destined for different paths. Part of being biotic was having the talent, having the physical ability to do so in the first place. For whatever reason out of the thousands of possible explanations, Raleigh had been born with biotic talent. His brother, however, had not. But they’d been close as kids, before all of that had come to light, and they’d stuck together as much as possible as they got older. When the first spike of Raleigh’s biotic talent had flared, his brother had defended him from the whispers and prejudice that came with the talents as much as he could, and when Raleigh had realised the only place in the galaxy he was going to be able to get a job without being stared at funny was the Alliance, his brother had followed him without a second glance. They’d trained together, fought together, even now. You didn’t split up the Beckets.

Besides, it wasn’t like they didn’t balance each other out. For all the tech in the world, Raleigh really didn’t care about much else than the ‘go’ and ‘stop’ buttons. Yancy was the engineer in the making, the man that tinkered with the opcode and hacked around the back of electronic door locks. Not that Raleigh didn’t appreciate the talents, but he just didn’t have the motivation for it. Besides, it made them a good team. One of the best. They balanced each other out, and only an idiot couldn’t see that. Raleigh was the heavy hitter, whilst Yancy was the silent one, the thinker of the equation. The Alliance was fond of dumping people into skills classes, classes to neatly categorise their abilities, as if people could be sorted into boxes. Vanguard and Inflitrator, that was what they’d called them. Distance and close combat. Ying and Yang. The perfect balance. The perfect team.

Not that it was doing them much good right now.

“Any word from that signal you sent out?” Raleigh asked, moving over to stand by his brother, looking down at the little orange display, acting as if he understood the flashing lines of code rushing down the screen like someone jumping back to the ground from the edge of the atmosphere. Without a parachute.

“It’s a beacon, Rals, it’s not exactly two way,” Yancy retorted dryly.

“Those bastards blew up our ride, we’re gonna need to beg _someone_ to come get us,” Raleigh pointed out. Which was really the overriding problem. The oncoming forces - whoever they were - had made a very good job of destroying their Shuttle, and it had been their only way home. There was no frigate in orbit, nothing waiting. Alliance wasn’t even meant to operate in the Terminus systems, but it had been a vital mission, and hence the small ship. Just a shame there was no back up, unless they somehow managed to sabotage the entire ship in orbit that belonged to the other guys. But that seemed unlikely as well as impossible. They needed a way off this rock. And fast.

“Someone will come. We just need to hold out,” Yancy said. Raleigh wished he could share the confidence. Not that they hadn’t survived worse, but still, it would be nice to know they wouldn’t need to live on a completely deserted colony for a month or two until command worked out something was wrong.

“We still got the data?” Raleigh asked. Yancy looked over his shoulder, giving his brother a flat look that clearly yelled ‘stop being such a dumbass’. Raleigh resisted the urge to stick his tongue because mayday mayday, he could still hear the guys that seemed really intent on killing them hammering on the door.

“It’s a file, Raleigh. A little string of data bits shoved together and run through a computer to make actual words. It’s on my omni-tool. You can’t _lose_ a file.”

“Well, if someone shoots out your ‘tool…” Raleigh tailed off.

“Stop being such a pessimist,” Yancy suggested.

  
“Realist!”

Yancy reached to his wrist, activating his Omni-tool, the orange hologram hovering over his wrist. The devices were standard issue in the Alliance, used in the field for keeping up with the action, hacking whatever needed hacked, and repairing tech. Raleigh had one too, but he mostly only looked at his when it was trying to tell him something important. But none the less, Yancy showed him the display, with the data store of the tool itself. And the data files they’d recovered from one of the old science labs were exactly where they were supposed to be.

“Satisfied?”

“Sorta,” Raleigh replied, a slight smile curving his lips.

That was when the door began to crack.

“Shit, we gotta move,” Raleigh muttered, moving away from his brother, heading towards the back of the room. Yancy turned back to the security consoles, tapping in a series of commands to do something useful, he could only assume. All Raleigh cared about right now was getting out before they ended up in a little bit of a tight spot. The security room for the labs wasn’t exactly the biggest, and despite the bottleneck at the door, it would be all too easy for the enemy to overwhelm them in here. They needed to get out, needed higher ground or _something_.

Higher ground.

Raleigh cursed lightly as he saw there was no second door, but as he’d mentioned earlier, the window still remained. He hadn’t really thought it would be an option, but right now, it looked like the _only_ option. At least Fehl Prime had an atmosphere though. Would have been a little bit awkward if this was Mars or something, and he effectively depressurized the room doing so.

“Hey, Yance?” Raleigh called examining the window, checking the number of shots left in his shotgun, and how many thermal clips he had to spare. If he ran out of those, the gun would overheat and point blank refuse to fire, but thanks to the seemingly endless ranks of mercenaries or whoever was after them, there’d been plenty lying around. He’d picked up a few. Plus he was never out of options. Not since he was biotic.

“Yeah?” Yancy eventually replied, sounding a little stressed. Raleigh kept his eyes on the window pane, as if he was trying to work something out.

“You know what I said about the window?”

There was a moment of silence, and Raleigh could almost hear the mechanical whirring as his brother’s brain made the necessary jumps to get to exactly what he was getting at.

“Raleigh…” Yancy threatened. Raleigh looked back, with a smile on his face. The door cracked a little wider, and Raleigh primed his gun, pointing it directly at the pane of glass. He didn’t hesitate before squeezing the trigger, watching the pane shatter and the shards fly out. “Raleigh!” Yancy called, but before he could form a proper objection, the door cracked even wider, and Raleigh grinned like a lunatic. Really, if anyone asked the youngest Becket, he would say he’d joined the Alliance because he had nowhere else to go. But in all honesty? Raleigh Becket loved his job. And no one would ever be able to take that away from him.

“Time to go, old man!” Raleigh called, letting his barriers taking the brunt of the gunfire coming through the crack in the doors as he ran for his brother, grabbing his hand and dragging him away from the consoles.

“Oh, no, don’t you fucking dare,” Yancy threatened. But there was a screech of metal as the doors cracked even wider, and Raleigh knew they didn’t have a choice. Besides. Sometimes, being reckless fools was really helpful.

“Just picture a really big featherbed and you’ll be fine,” Raleigh reassured him.

“I don’t think that’s-” Yancy was cut off as the doors creaked again as someone continued to push them open by force.

“Count of three! 1...2…,” Raleigh counted. And then he ran. The space between them and the window wasn’t much, and before he knew it, they were flying through the air.

On reflection, jumping out of a fourth floor window wasn’t his smartest idea.

There was a brief moment of panic, but then Raleigh managed to remind himself he didn’t want to die by faceplanting on some shitty backwater colony in the Terminus, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting Yancy die here either. So in the few seconds he had, he reached out for his brother’s hand, and then let the mass effect fields flow, the burn of the blue fire twisting around them as the field expanded, and Raleigh pushed out, trying to cushion them as they came closer to the ground, to at least soften the fall. It was a trick he’d seen countless Asari do more than once, and he’d had one teach him a thing or two once. But the Asari were the beautiful race of blue skinned aliens that happened to be entirely female and they all automatically possessed biotic abilities, and were naturally better at it than anyone else. Basically, they were perfect. Which meant that whilst the Asari would float to the ground on a little cloud of blue, like an angel descending from heaven, all Raleigh managed to achieve was a blue comet hitting the dirt.

On the plus side, when his head stopped spinning, he figured he hadn’t broken his back. Definite plus point.

“Yance? You good?”

There was a groan from beside him. But Raleigh could feel his brother shift beside him, and part of him couldn’t help but laugh slightly hysterically as he looked upwards, and saw some of the mercenaries peering out of the window, looking down, almost daring each other to follow. Well, at least it worked. Right?

“We are never doing that again,” Yancy eventually groaned, and Raleigh grinned, heaving himself upright.

“C’mon, it was fun.” Yancy glared at him. “Not even a little bit?”

“Falling to my near-death was not on the list of things to do today,” Yancy retorted sharply. Raleigh rolled his eyes.

“Drama queen,” Raleigh retorted.

“Reckless little shit.”

“You love it.”

“The hell I do.”

“When you two are finished bein’ idiots…”

The Australian accent came through the air like a tidal wave, and Raleigh finally turned towards the end of the street they landed in, seeing the khaiki tones of a man in armour. Yancy instantly reached for his pistol, and for a moment, Raleigh was stretching again for his biotics, but then his mind caught up with his instincts as he analysed the face, the voice at the back of his mind that was very nearly familiar and not at all, all at once.

Yancy made the jump before he did.

“Hansen? That you?” Yancy asked, still seeming a little woozy.

“The hell you expectin’, a kangaroo with boxing gloves?” Herc retorted, and both Beckets grinned in response, Raleigh getting to his feet, falling in behind his brother who was already approaching the older man, an arm outstretched as they gripped arms, as close to a handshake as you got on a mission. Raleigh did the same, a grin on his face.

“You’re a little bit lost to be out in the Terminus, aren’t you?” Raleigh asked.

“Naw, got hauled out for some fancy mission. Fate of the galaxy and all that. Can’t have you two stealing all the glory, can we?”

“Glory?” Raleigh replied, raising an eyebrow. Herc simply smiled in reply, in that way that Raleigh knew it was a lost battle before it even started. Yancy cleared his throat slightly, his eyes pointedly drifting to the two people lingering at Herc’s back. Raleigh’s attention was drawn there too, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell this was all about.

“Engineer Mako Mori, and my son, Chuck,” Herc bit out awkwardly, and Raleigh nodded. It had been a while since they’d seen Herc Hansen - their last op had been a chance encounter. They’d had to hitch a ride on a dreadnought to get back to Alliance headquarters at Arcturus Station, and that dreadnought just happened to be the one that Herc was stationed on at the time. They’d run missions together before, in the past, but N7s were ground team. Fighter pilots didn’t tend to come into their area of expertise. But Herc had been a decent guy, and besides, N7s didn’t tend to be total idiots. Raleigh remembered people that made an impression. Which was why he was fairly sure he’d never met either of Herc’s companions, because between the vibrant blue streaks in Mori’s hair and the rather attractive set of Chuck’s jaw, Raleigh was fairly sure he would have remembered.

And now was not the time to be silently admiring the physical appearance of Herc Hansen’s son.

“That’s _Lieutenant_ Hansen,” griped the man in question, and Raleigh resisted a smile as Herc shot a look over his shoulder that made his son’s jaw tighten even more, the irritation written all over his face. Herc turned back, and looked between the Beckets. Seemed like there wasn’t meant to be said about the issue. Mori, at least, didn’t seem too upset. She’d nodded her head in greeting, a gesture Raleigh returned.

They were all reminded of the situation when some yelling echoed down from above.

“Okay, as much as I’d love to catch up, this isn’t really the time or the place, so…” Raleigh gestured, nodding back down the street. Herc nodded in agreement, standing aside slightly so they could all move forward, Raleigh and Yancy with Herc leading the front, whilst Mako and Chuck fell into rear guard.

“Right. Distress beacon, that was you two?” Herc continued.

“You picked that up?” Yancy questioned.

“Yeah, I was in the neighbourhood,” Herc replied casually. “We got anyone else needing to high tail it out of here, or is it just you two?”

“Think most of our unit’s dead at this point. If anyone survived we told them to be at the rendezvous about twenty minutes ago, so we should be able to pick them up there,” Yancy explained briefly.

“Where is it?”

“About two clicks north of here, one of the old science labs on the edge of the complex.”

“Shuttle’s out in the fields, maybe four clicks east,” Herc told them.

“You sure it’s secure?” Raleigh asked. “We had a ride, but it got shot to hell pretty quick.”

“First sign of life we saw was you two bozos jumping out of a bloody window. I’m pretty sure it’s secure.”

Raleigh shared a look with his brother, sighing slightly.

“If there’s anyone out there, I don’t want to leave them behind,” Raleigh said solemnly, and Yancy nodded.

“Can’t risk the shuttle, though. I’m not getting stuck here twice,” Yancy replied.

“Divide and conquer?” Raleigh suggested, and Yancy looked pained, as if he’d been expecting it anyway but hadn’t quite wanted to hear it. “C’mon, you know it’ll be faster. You can head out to the shuttle with Herc, get that data secure and do whatever you need to do. I’ll go see if there’s anyone left standing.”

“As much as I appreciate your clear demonstrations of phenomenal biotic power, Becket, maybe you shouldn’t be charging through a bunch of mercs on your own, yeah?” Herc suggested.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Raleigh countered. Herc sighed, glancing at the two behind him, as if weighing up his options.

“We’ll split up. Mori and I can take your brother to the shuttle and swing it around to pick you up. You and Chuck,” Herc explained briefly. “I’d let you have Mako, but I’m pretty sure Stacker’d cut my balls off if she came back with so much as a scratch on her armour.”

“Shit, Pentecost?” Yancy asked. Even they’d heard of Stacker Pentecost. Man was practically a legend, but he also wasn’t Alliance. Not anymore. Hadn’t been for a while, either. “What the hell are you up to, Hansen?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Herc responded, before turning his eyes to Raleigh. “You look after my kid, you hear me?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Raleigh responded, peeling off to the left to scout out the street, waiting as Herc pulled Chuck aside, probably explaining the arrangements to him. It took a minute, but eventually the younger man joined him, a slight scowl on his face. Raleigh couldn’t help but look him over. Part of his mind was still screaming ‘Herc Hansen’s son’, but the other part was a little bit too distracted with how good that body armour looked on him to really care.

Keep it together, Becket. You’re not out of this yet.

“You been in a firefight before, Lieutenant?” Raleigh couldn’t help but ask. The younger man rolled his eyes, making a small sound of derision at the back of his throat and goddamn that was not helping matters.

“What d’you think, Becket?”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Raleigh grumbled slightly. Maybe he was attractive, but it was a shame it didn’t extend to his personality. “What’re you carrying?”

“M8-Avenger and a M23-Katana,” he replied shortly, and Raleigh resisted rolling his eyes, because really ‘assault rifle’ and ‘shotgun’ would have done him nicely. He wasn’t in the mood for a fight over weapon specs.

“Okay. You take point, I’ll keep an eye on our six. Stay close and don’t do anything stupid and we’ll be fine,” Raleigh advised.

“What, stupid like jumping out of a window stupid?”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Raleigh quipped.

“Yeah, if you consider faceplanting into the tarmac working,” Chuck retorted. Raleigh just shook his head slightly.

“C’mon, the sooner we get to the rendezvous, the sooner we all get to go home,” Raleigh reminded him.

“Then what’re we standing here for?” Chuck asked, before walking away, straight down the middle of the street. Raleigh resisted a groan, pulling out his pistol before he could get too far ahead. As long as they made it through in one piece, it’d be fine. Right?


	4. Evacuation

For an insubordinate little shit, Hansen was actually pretty good at this.

Raleigh had hoped they’d get through unscathed, but they made it about half way before one of the smaller units of mercs got in their way. After the window stunt, it seemed they’d split up to try and work out where exactly their prey had gone. However, Raleigh wasn’t concerned. The groups were small and besides. The mercs - for whatever reason - wanted the data. The data Yancy had left with. Hell, Raleigh didn’t even know what it was they’d risked their necks for. Sometimes, it was better not to know. Hell. Sometimes he didn’t even _want_ to know. Brass told them to do something and it happened. By whatever means necessary.

That, however, didn’t cover leaving people behind, so here they were. Trying not to leave anyone behind. If that lab was empty Raleigh was going to hit something. Hard.

Either way, that sort of thing wasn’t going to help - what was going to help was keeping a level head and getting a move on. The trouble they ran into was easily dispatched, between Raleigh’s biotics and Chuck’s habit for trying to punch the other guy in the face with an omniblade. But either way, they worked well, Raleigh able to carve out a path for them and keep the pressure off as Chuck persisted in his smash-and-grab tactics. Raleigh didn’t think he had the right to call anyone reckless, but if he did, he’d definitely be calling the other man reckless. He didn’t seem to have any sort of restraint, or regards for his own safety, which made it hard for Raleigh, since he knew if Chuck made to the shuttle in anything other than pristine condition, Raleigh wouldn’t live to see tomorrow, N7 or not.

He also wasn’t going to earn any badges by letting his mind ponder just how fucking attractive that looked when Chuck Hansen was busy knocking another violent mercenary to the ground. If Yancy was there, he would have slapped him around the head and told him to focus.

No, actually, scratch that. If Yancy was there he would have laughed his fucking ass off, and then told him to save it for shore leave. But really. They were N7s, Special Ops division, and the entire galaxy had pretty much gone to shit. Shore leave was out of the question. Not more than a day or two, at the very least. And whilst there was a lot you could do with a day, Raleigh knew better than to fuck up what was a very good working relationship with a very good fighter pilot. Sometimes having contacts paid out pretty well - such as now, even if Herc didn’t seem to have known it was the Beckets he was coming to collect. But still, he’d come. They had a ride out. That was fantastic, and definitely one of the best things to happen all day. And whatever ship Herc was on, he was on it with his son, and Raleigh would need to stay there until they got to a spaceport they could get a transfer on. Or at least another ship. Which would probably be Omega, since this was the Terminus. Raleigh resisted a grimace at that. No one liked Omega. Omega was the trashcan of the galaxy - it was filthy, and filled to the brim with corruption and a high mortality rate. If you wanted a criminal, you’d find one and a hundred more on Omega. That and a bunch of people too poor or too scared to find their way out of the station. It wasn’t pretty, and Raleigh wasn’t particularly fond of extended visits to the old mining station. But it was better than being stuck on an abandoned, deserted colony, he supposed.

“You gonna stand there all day, Becket?”

Raleigh looked up, finding the younger Hansen standing at the corner of the street, looking at him expectantly, an eyebrow raised. Raleigh shook his head slightly, collecting the last of the thermal clips for the latest batch of mercs, tossing a couple to Chuck as he drew closer, glancing around before moving out onto the next street, still heading towards the old lab on the north side of the complex. They’d crossed plenty of ground. Glancing at the map on his omni-tool, Raleigh figured they should be there soon. Which was good - the sooner they could leave, the better.

“I was just… I don’t get it,” Raleigh exhaled eventually.

“Don’t get what?”

“Okay, everyone and their mother knows that N7s are basically classified from here to the Perseus Veil. I don’t understand how they knew we’d be here - or how they found about what was here in the first place. I don’t even know who they are. Blood Pack, Blue Suns, Eclipse, they’re all big on pretty colours. These guys… I don’t recognise the symbol.” Raleigh had had plenty of run ins with the galaxy’s more prolific gangs and mercenary groups. This… this didn’t fit the bill. It felt off. Raleigh didn’t even know what they were after, and it worried him more than it should.

“What are they looking for anyway? Apart from you and your brother, I mean,” Chuck asked. Raleigh shrugged.

“Guess it must be the files we picked up,” Raleigh said lightly.

“On?”

“Damned if I know.”

Chuck looked at him like he’d just started spouting the raw equations for plotting mass effect jumps through the relay network. Raleigh arched an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“You jumped out of a window defending a file and you _don’t even know what it is_?” Chuck asked.

“What, you saying your superiors tell you exactly why you’re doing everything you do?”

“No, but I usually have a pretty good idea what’s going on,” Chuck retorted.

“N7 is as close to black ops as the Alliance has these days. Sometimes, it’s really, really healthy _not_ to ask,” Raleigh informed him.

“I thought N7 was just a training rank,” Chuck replied, looking a little grumpy. Raleigh resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and he seemed to be doing that a lot because how naive was this guy?

“It _is_ just a rank. It’s not even a test you can pass. It’s granted by - and I quote - survival in an admirable and effective fashion. But there’s not exactly a huge list of us, so once you pass, your name goes on a few special lists and before you know it you’re running high risk, boring as shit missions into the middle of nowhere for god knows what,” Raleigh explained briefly.

“You think this is boring?”

“Eh, jumping out that window was pretty fun.”

Chuck stared at him for a minute. Raleigh just grinned. It was the ‘you’re insane’ look. He knew it well. Happened all the time.

“C’mon, we’re almost there,” Raleigh gestured, leading the way around the corner and towards the edge of the complex, heading down the street before hovering by the door of the lab in question. He could hear movement inside, though, his ears picking up the chatter of voices. Raising a hand, he signalled to Chuck to hold, pulling out his pistol and holding it steady with his right hand, his left primed to pull whatever biotics he needed. His stasis fields had never been the most reliable, but if needs be, he could just hurl them against the wall and make a lot of noise about it.

Holding up his fingers to count down, he waited in what was almost excited anticipation before bursting in through the door, gun raised, Chuck at his side. There was a moment of confusion as three more rifles came up to meet them, and a bare second of tension before everything seemed to snap. Raleigh almost wanted to laugh.

“Should’ve known you three would make it out,” he muttered, holstering his pistol at his hip again, a smile cracking across his face. The three men in question lowered their weapons at a moment’s notice, but Chuck seemed to remain tense, unsure. Raleigh couldn’t say he blamed him. He looked over, nodding to the younger man.

“It’s okay. They’re with me,” he confirmed, before his eyes drifted to the striking crimson armour of those before him, the golden Chinese dragon emblazoned across the chest plate. Of course the Wei Triplets had made it. It seemed the Alliance wasn’t completely dense when it came to sibling teams that worked well. They’d kept him and Yancy together for most of the years. And he was sure all hell would break loose if there was so much as a whisper of splitting up the Weis. And for good reason. They were lethal in battle, Raleigh had seen that for himself. They’d only lost the Weis at the last minute, when an serious case of superior numbers had forced them to split up.

Raleigh could only be glad he’d insisted on coming to check for them.

“Ah, Chuck, this is Lieutenants Cheung, Hu and Jin Wei Tang. They dropped with us for the mission. Boys, this is Lieutenant Chuck Hansen. And our free pass off this dirt ball,” Raleigh explained briefly. There was a general look of satisfaction from all three of them. “Ready to go?” Raleigh asked. When he was met with general nods, he smiled briefly. “Okay. Let’s move out. Make it quick people, I want off this planet asap.”

Raleigh didn’t really wait for an agreement, instead scouting out the street before gesturing the small group of Lieutenants forward. Technically he outranked them all, but he was relatively sure he and Yancy had only been promoted so fast because they were N7s. It wouldn’t have mattered what rank they were, people would have fallen in behind them anyway out of sheer respect for the red stripe down their armour, for what they’d proved themselves capable of. Certainly all four men followed without question as Raleigh led the way to the edge of the complex proper, activating his comms as he did so.

“You got an ETA yet, old man?” Raleigh asked. There was still a lot of interference on the line - something they’d both supposed was deliberate sabotage by the mercs. But so close to the edge of the complex, the signal was just clear enough to make out a message.

“Got a read on your location, we’ll be there in a minute,” he replied. The static was so bad Raleigh didn’t even try to reply. He sighed, and was about to turn to tell his little group the good news when a yell came up, and Raleigh span on the spot, notice a group of mercs at the end of the street. Raleigh swore, but his instincts kicked in as soon as he did, noticing the heavy grenade launcher targeted their way.

“Get down!” he yelled, beginning to move out of the way. The Weis did the same, but as he was ducking out of the way, he noticed Chuck. He’d been right in the middle of the street, and shit, the little idiot wasn’t going to fucking make it. Kinetic barriers were good, but Raleigh had seen weapons like that tear through them without even thinking about it.

So he didn’t think. He just moved. He made a run for the younger man, halting him in his tracks and catching him around the waist, dragging him down to the ground. As he did so, his biotics flared, the blue glow burning over his skin like a halo as he threw his arm out, expanding out his barriers, trying to strengthen it as best as he could. So when the shell deflected off the barrier and hit the ground just a few feet away from them, throwing up an enormous amount of dust and debris, it did next to nothing. The shrapnel just bounced away, as did the array of bullets that quickly fell on them like a hailstorm.

That was outside of the barrier though. Inside it, Raleigh was still lying on the ground, Chuck Hansen pinned underneath him, his arm still wrapped around the other man’s waist and fuck this wasn’t quite the plan he’d had in mind and was distracting, if nothing else. There was a moment between them, when Chuck looked up at him in surprise mingled with what looked like awe, and Raleigh just gazed back because fucking shit what was _wrong_ with him?

“You good?” Raleigh breathed. Chuck nodded.

“Yeah,” he replied.

At that, Raleigh pulled away, releasing Chuck and using his newly freed hand to help maintain, the barrier, getting to his feet. Chuck did the same, hesitating for a minute as he primed his gun. They shared a glance, and Raleigh nodded before releasing the barrier, letting their shields take over the damage control as Raleigh raised his pistol to aim down the street, and take care of whatever mercs were in the way. He was aware of the flurry of the Weis down the street, tag teaming whoever was stupid enough to get in their way. Raleigh stayed close to Chuck, though, keeping an eye on him, although he’d never admit to it. But instead of thinning out, it seemed what was left of the mercs just kept coming.

“Yancy!” Raleigh yelled down the comm, urgent. They needed out of here, _now_. As soon as he did so, though, he heard the flare of shuttle engines in the distance, the small craft landing at the end of the street behind them. The door slid open, and Raleigh shot a look behind him. “Move out!” he yelled over the hail of bullets, watching as the Weis did as he asked. But Chuck was still hanging on, under too much fire to reliably move back. Raleigh hissed. Biotics took a lot out of him as far as energy went, and the barrier had burned him low, he could feel that much. But he sure as hell wasn’t leaving anyone behind. Not now. Not when he’d already lost most of the unit they’d landed with. Not when they were so close. So Raleigh surged forward, digging deep as he threw another Shockwave down the street, the pure force of the move blasting most of the mercs out of the way. Rushing forward, Raleigh grabbed at Chuck’s arm, dragging him back.

“Move!” he yelled, and this time, the Australian had the good sense to do what he was told.

They ran for the shuttle, the Weis and Yancy covering them from the door, the array of gunfire giving them enough space to jump on board. The second they fell into the small craft, the doors slid closed as they took for the air. Raleigh didn’t really relax until they’d gained altitude, heading for the edge of the atmosphere. And whilst Chuck picked himself up off the floor where they’d landed, Raleigh stayed exactly where he was, physically drained. He knew exactly why that was, but he didn’t even have the energy to move to fix it. He didn’t need to though. Because before knew it, Yancy was there, reaching for the packs at his brother’s waist, tearing open one of the glucose packs and pressing it into his brother’s hand. Raleigh mumbled a thanks, quickly squishing the contents into his mouth. It didn’t exactly taste the best, but the Alliance didn’t exactly design these things for culinary delights - more like for trying to stop biotics dropping on the field. At least he’d made it back to the shuttle. He’d probably need to sleep for a while though.

And maybe eat a horse or two.

“Is he okay?” someone asked, and part of Raleigh registered the Australian accent, which lead him to Chuck. In that order. The exhaustion was hitting him faster than he’d expected, but that last shockwave had practically burned him dry.

“He’ll be fine. Biotics take a bit of a hit in the field if you spend a long time using them,” Yancy explained briefly. “We’ve been down there for longer than we expected.”

“We should make it back to the ship soon, then we can get you boys out of here,” Herc called from the pilot’s seat, and Raleigh sighed, tossing the pack aside, hauling himself upright, feeling his head spin slightly. But the sugar was already starting to work its way through his body. Hopefully he’d be able to walk onto Herc’s mysterious ship, as opposed to crawl onto it. Lifting himself onto one of the seats in the shuttle’s small passenger bay, Raleigh found himself next to Chuck, and he nodded slightly to the younger man, who nodded back. Raleigh had a feeling they’d have a lot to talk about.

But later. When he was less likely to say something stupid.

Raleigh didn’t notice Yancy sitting opposite him, who looked between his brother and the Lieutenant at his side and simply rolled his eyes and sighed.


	5. In Transit

“Rals. C’mon, wake up.”

Raleigh groaned, before blearily cracking eyes open, looking around in confusion for a moment before his eyes met his brother in front of him, trying to tug him out of whatever chair he’d collapsed into.

“Wusgoinon?” Raleigh slurred, rubbing his eyes. Raleigh was usually the sort of man that jumped straight into alertness without a second thought, but the problem right now was that he wasn’t really sleeping so much as trying to slip into a coma. The glucose hit had worked for a time, and Raleigh had managed to walk onto Stacker Pentecost’s cruiser with his head held high. The man in question had been waiting for them, welcoming them aboard, and quickly granting them use of the Conference Room, with the comms devices they needed, whilst promising to talk to them later. There were large chairs placed in a circle around the edge of the conference room that had looked entirely too comfortable, so as Yancy had uploaded the files to Alliance command and reported in with their superiors, Raleigh supposed he must have drifted off. But his brother was used to taking care of him. They’d been together for years, and Yancy had seen him burn out before, when he’d not quite known his limits. It had been a while since he’d burned out quite so hard. But part of Raleigh knew that the barrier he’d thrown up was what had put him to the empty level, and nothing but adrenaline had produced that last shockwave. Barriers were usually fine, but they were small, limited to his own body, and definitely did not stop the sort of debris he’d managed to block from hitting Chuck. The barrier had been far bigger than anything he’d pulled before, and far stronger. Usually only Asari were capable of that.

He was very much _not_ Asari.

“Come on, Mako said she’d find us some spare uniforms, and then you need to eat,” Yancy advised, hauling him to his feet. Raleigh swayed for a minute, trying to pull himself back to reality. It took some effort, but he managed to focus once he got on his feet. Maybe that emergency sugar rush had done more than he’d thought.

Raleigh simply nodded, following on autopilot as he got into the elevator and headed down to the crew deck of the ship. He didn’t really question much about the journey either. Mako was waiting by the elevator with a bundle of clothes, which she passed to Yancy, who quickly guided his brother towards the nearest locker room. Raleigh hadn’t really thought about the fact they didn’t have any of their stuff. They usually travelled light anyway, but any supplies they had been carrying had been burned with their ride off of Fehl Prime. All he had was the armour on his back and the guns he had on him. At least he still had his guns, though. He was far too attached to his Paladin and Eviscerator combination, and the thing about a marine and his weapons was that he looked after them. Raleigh had spent a long time customising his guns, and he’d put his life in their hands over and over again. He didn’t want to go back to having to test whatever he could pick up in a store somewhere. Especially if that store was on Omega. Those things would probably disintegrate or melt or something.

Raleigh didn’t trust Omega. Stacker hadn’t even mentioned if they were going there or not. In fact, he hadn’t said anything at all about where they were going, which left the Beckets and the three Lieutenants in a little bit of limbo. Raleigh was sure it would come up later. He was too exhausted to really care right now.

“I’m not undressing you, kid,” Yancy said, unclipping the first plates of his armour, and Raleigh grumbled slightly, doing the same, fumbling slightly with the clips and plates, somehow managing to work it all off with numb fingers. His mind was stuck in a haze, and he was running on autopilot and he pawed at the clothes in front of him, tugging them on, sitting down and lacing up the boots they’d been given. Raleigh might have questioned the fact that it all fit, but he’d been wearing Alliance uniforms for a long time, and Yancy knew his size by now. No doubt he’d just asked Mako for the right stuff. Which meant he’d need to remember to thank her later, when he didn’t feel like he was about to hit the floor and stay there for a few months.

Yancy was already dressed by the time Raleigh was fumbling with his boot laces, and rolling his eyes, he watched, leaning back against the lockers. He bit his lip slightly, seeming to consider something for a moment before making a decision, and beginning to speak.

“So, you seemed to like baby Hansen,” Yancy quipped. Raleigh groaned, slipping a loop on the bootlaces for the third time.

“We gotta do this _now?_ I feel like I’m gonna fall over,” Raleigh complained.

“Which is exactly why you’ll talk, because you know I’m gonna make you sit there until you spit it out,” Yancy countered. Raleigh hated to admit he had a point.

“He’s a good soldier,” Raleigh replied wearily.

“He’s a pilot, not a soldier. And you know that’s not what I meant,” Yancy retorted, eyebrow raised. Raleigh looked up at him, sighing slightly.

“‘M not gonna try anything, I wanna get off this boat with my balls attached.”

Yancy seemed to consider him for a moment as he finished tying his boots, wearily getting to his feet. Yancy sighed, pushing away from the lockers to walk at his brother’s side, collecting their assortment of armour.

“Why do you always have to drool over the assholes?” Yancy asked, sounding resigned. Raleigh shrugged slightly.

“He’s not _that_ bad,” Raleigh retorted.

“No, he’s just an insubordinate little shit, that’s all.”

Raleigh pouted slightly. Yancy just rolled his eyes, before seeming to take pity on him, finding a crate nearby and hauling it open.

“Jesus, just gimmie your crap, kid. I’ll go dump it in the armoury. Go and eat before you pass out again, yeah?” Yancy suggested. Raleigh nodded. He turned to leave before spinning back, almost stumbling on the spot.

“Where’s the mess?” he asked. He’d been on cruisers before, but for some reason, his mind was struggling to map the route from A to B right now. That was probably the exhaustion. Yancy rolled his eyes.

“‘Round the corner, take a left. Can’t miss it, kid.”

“Shut it, old man,”

“Just go and eat before I spoon feed you,” Yancy threatened.

“Aye aye, sir,” Raleigh grumbled mockingly, leaving the armour to Yancy. He did as instructed, following Yancy’s directions to find the space open out into a large mess hall. It was by no means empty, and Raleigh thought he could spot a few of those that had been on the mission floating around. That looked like the Wei Tangs over in the corner, no doubt throwing bits of food at some of the techs or something. Raleigh wasn’t really bothered for people though - before he could make a decent move towards where the food was, though, he found himself intercepted, a tray being pressed into his hands. Raleigh looked up.

“You look like you need it,” said Herc, nodding over to one of the tables, and Raleigh just followed in a daze. He sat down, and part of his mind reminded him to pick up the fork and eat. Space food didn’t taste the best, especially since there was no real kitchen, but it was better than nothing, and as long as Raleigh met the calorie quota no one seemed to care. He was generally expected to eat more, since he was biotic. Which was good, because he was usually something of a human vacuum. Never seemed to matter what he was eating as long as he was eating.

The second he started to get some food back in his system, he could feel his body start to recover, and he sighed slightly in relief. Herc looked over with a slight smile on his face.

“Pretty hectic down there?” he asked. Raleigh shrugged.

“Nothing I’m not used to, but I guess sometimes I forget to slow it down,” Raleigh commented, idly rubbing at the back of his neck, just below where the amp sat at the base of his skull. Being biotic didn’t come without a cost. There was the surgery, brain implants and amp devices needed to jack the talents up to a useable level. And even after all that, some of the older implant models caused more problems than they fixed. Raleigh had been lucky, but only just. It hadn't been easy. But then again, nothing had ever been easy in the Becket household, so he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

“You’re allowed to be human, Becket, N7 or not,” Herc advised him. Raleigh glanced up for a moment, nodding.

“Yeah, I know.”

There might have been more said, but another irate Australian voice cut in before he could manage it.

“Did you forget to get me food or something?” Chuck griped, standing at the opposite side of the table with a bulldog at his feet.

Wait. A dog. On a spaceship.

Was that even allowed?

“You keep telling me not to baby you, go get it yourself,” Herc retorted sharply, and Chuck’s expression tightened as he stomped off. The dog stayed though, seeming torn between his master and his master’s father. Herc whistled briefly, and the dog wagged his tail, moving around the table to sit in the gap between Herc and Raleigh’s feet, sitting up attentively as Herc fed him a little off the food tray. Raleigh was still trying to catch up with the dog on a spaceship thing. Then something clicked in his head as he stared down at the food he was still shovelling down.

“Did you..?”

“He can fend for himself. You looked like you were gonna pass out on me or something,” Herc said gruffly, and Raleigh shook his head slightly. As long as Chuck never found out, it’d be fine. He hoped. Instead, Raleigh focused his attentions on the dog, still trying to work out if he’d snapped and started hallucinating.

“You guys have a dog. On a cruiser,” Raleigh said slowly.

“Yeah. Chuck’s pretty good at looking after him, but if we need to run a long flight or something, our tech crew spoil him goddamn rotten when we’re gone.” Raleigh shook his head slightly, clutching at the topic change like a lifeline.

“So you’re both in the same squad, then?”

“Done a few rotations apart here and there. He joined up when he was just a kid. I went away for a few months, got a posting on the SSV Benjamin Davis. By the time I got back the kid had himself in flight school before I could complain ‘bout it. Think someone wanted to keep us together as far as possible though, we never really got split up too far. Then this came up,” Herc explained gesturing vaguely at the ship with his fork. Raleigh frowned.

“What is ‘this’ anyway?” Raleigh asked. “I’ve seen plenty of Alliance uniforms on some of the crew but this…”

“Doesn’t feel Alliance? Yeah. Stacker got some top secret unofficial assignment from one of the Admirals and now he’s floating around trying to rope people into it. But of course, Stacker’s not Alliance and technically neither is the ship, so…”

“Sounds suspiciously like black ops to me,” Raleigh countered. Herc shrugged.

“Guess it must be important, then, if they’re willing to turn a whole cruiser into a ghost. The Admiral had the boat renamed and repainted, the full works. Still an Alliance name though, which seems crazy to me, but what do I know?”

“I didn’t see the name on my way in,” Raleigh noted.

“Hong Kong,” Herc replied. Raleigh raised an eyebrow.

“Isn’t that a frigate these days?”

“It is. Which is probably why Stacker kept the name, because anyone that reads our file at a dock is gonna be very, very confused for the next few weeks.”

Before Raleigh could press further, Chuck returned with a tray in hand, taking a seat and looking suspiciously between his father and Raleigh. Raleigh exhaled slightly, feeling the tension sitting on the air.

“So. You have a dog,” Raleigh prompted, glancing down at the wrinkled thing still sitting by his feet. Chuck glanced over the table, glancing down at the dog in question, before looking up at Raleigh.

“Yeah? Problem, Becket?” Chuck challenged. Insubordinate little shit, his brother had said. Raleigh hated to say he was right, but…

“You don’t get many bulldogs on navy ships,” Raleigh commented.

“I don’t know what sort of fancy N7 ships you’re used to, Becket, but Max is with me. Bit like you and your brother, yeah? After all, Yancy’s gotta keep you around for something.”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Herc cut in, and Raleigh could feel himself flaring. He hated showing weakness like that, but sometimes when his emotions got the better of him, his control went out the window. The sort of control he needed to keep his biotics in check. His training had been good, and most of the time, he didn't need to think about keeping it all in check. It was like a heartbeat. It was there, but if something knocked him off balance and the rhythm changed, his skin burned blue and people got a little freaked out. People had enough problems with biotics without him demonstrating a lack of control. Not the best way to start a rotation on a ship, especially not one like this.

The truth was, Raleigh had always known his brother was the better fighter, the better soldier, the better _everything_. He’d only made it so far because by some freak chance of fate, he’d ended up biotic. Without that, without his biotics… he didn’t know who he was, or what he was worth. Probably not much, when it came down to it. And even with his biotics, he wasn’t worth much without Yancy.

He didn't exactly appreciate being reminded of the fact.

“I should really go find Yancy anyway,” Raleigh murmured under his breath, barely realising he’d finished the food that had been placed in front of him. He didn’t need to find Yancy at all. What he needed to do was not punch Chuck Hansen in the face. Maybe Yancy hadn’t been too far off base - the kid was a bit of an asshole.

Still, a few days and they’d be off this ship for good. And Raleigh Becket would never need to set eyes on Chuck Hansen again, which would settle the issue of that ridiculously attractive jaw line once and for all. Goddammit.

* * *

When the elevator doors opened onto the hangar deck, it was by no means empty. On the walk back to the shuttle, Herc had explained a little of what he was doing, of the cargo the cruiser was carrying. But hearing about it and seeing it were entirely different things. The 12 fighters spread out across the hangar bay in front of him were impressive, to say the least. What was almost as impressive was the number of people working on them, checking parts, replacing things, polishing and priming, checking seals and doing everything from the mundane to the complicated. Yancy could hardly believe it.

Half of him forgotten what he’d come down here for, despite the fact he still had a rather heavy crate in his arms. His stuff alone would have been enough, but Yancy had agreed to deal with Raleigh’s gear too, which had put the load up. Not that he couldn’t handle it, he just probably shouldn’t be standing here drooling at tech with a crate of guns and armour in his hands.

“I did the same when I first saw them.”

Yancy looked over, slightly surprised as his eyes took in the delicate form of Mako Mori. She did look different out of armour, and Yancy was still trying to connect up the small girl in a black hardsuit to the woman in front him now, boiler suit rolled down to her waist, wearing a white tank top that was practically black from grease and dirt. Her skin was dyed dark too, smudges of oil and grime painting her like a war paint. Yancy had to be impressed. They hadn’t even been on the ship for that long, plus she’d been upstairs earlier to deliver him with clothes that wasn’t a hardsuit. Apparently, she didn’t know the meaning of downtime. Either that or she was highly committed to this project and looking at it… Yancy could see why.

“It’s…. it’s something alright,” Yancy admitted, exhaling, looking up at the masses of ship just sitting there, like a bird waiting to take flight. Part of Yancy wanted to see them in the air, but from the various states of disarray, he could tell that none of them were flight ready yet. It was a shame, really, since Yancy wasn’t sure how long they’d be on the cruiser. Just until they made port. They’d need to go back to Arcturus, or maybe Earth or the Citadel. Maybe someone would send them on another mission before they even made it that far. It was hard to tell. But Yancy knew how things worked. They rarely stumbled across the same ship twice, especially in such quick succession. They wouldn’t come back here again.

Part of him was almost sad about it.

“The armoury is over here. There should be space for everything,” Mako gestured to the end of the deck just behind her, where there were a few weapons benches set out, along with a row of lockers for everything to slide into. Yancy looked down at the box in his hands, the haphazard arrangement of gear and figured that should really take priority over drooling over some spaceships.

“Ah, yeah. Thanks,” Yancy said, following her over and setting the box onto one of the benches. “Thanks for the clothes as well. We had stuff on our ship but obviously…”

“It’s not a problem. We had some surplus in the store from this ship’s last crew,” Mako explained gently. Yancy nodded. He’d heard all about the reassignment of this ship, the scraping off of badges and paint and the lengths gone to to make sure that no one got too much detail on what was going on. Part of Yancy still couldn’t believe they’d gotten away with calling this thing the Hong Kong. But it seemed there were quite a few blurred lines on this ship, at least when it came to the letter of Alliance practices.

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

Beginning to lift out some of the plates, Yancy looked up in surprise when Mako placed some more empty boxes on the counter - proper ones this time, lined and padded, designed to take care of the equipment when it was in transport or storage. Yancy smiled at her.

“Thanks.”

She nodded slightly, doing that almost half bow thing she tended to do, her whole body tilting forward and her hair falling softly across her face, the electric blue and jet black standing out against her pale skin.

“Can I..?” Mako asked, gesturing at the random assortment of gear. Yancy shifted slightly.

“Sure, be my guest,” he said, watching her as she began to pass him the bits of armour without word, letting Yancy put it all away. She let that continue without comment, and soon enough, the two crates were nicely arranged with the hardsuits. Mako didn’t speak again until her hands passed over the weapons at the bottom, her hands brushing lightly over the casing as she seemed to admire them. She handled them with a skill Yancy hadn’t expected, despite the fact he’d met her in the middle of the field. He supposed that looking as she did right now, greased up and already back at work, it was hard not to think of her as the engineer she was. But she wasn’t just an engineer. That was for sure. And it was made obvious when she lifted his sniper rifle out of the crate, her hands drifting down the weapon.

“A Viper?” she asked questioningly. Yancy shrugged. There were plenty of models of sniper rifle out there, and he knew most people went for a Widow, or even a Mantis, which was effectively a cut down version of the Widow itself. But the Viper was lighter, faster to fire, had a better recoil than most other guns of its type, and Yancy just liked it. It wasn’t that conventional, but he’d learned to work with it. He’d learned to love it, even. The heavier, more powerful models just felt clunky in his hands. So yeah, he used a Viper model. And he was willing to defend that if he needed to.

He didn’t.

“It’s a good choice. Versatile. Lightweight. Tricky if you miss the vitals, though,” she evaluated cleanly, her eyes drifting down the scope. Yancy was almost impressed. He hadn’t expected that kind of weaponry expertise from an engineer, but maybe he’d been a little hasty. There was far more to Miss Mori than met the eye, clearly.

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t miss very often,” Yancy replied smoothly. Mako looked up, meeting his eyes with a smile.

“That, Commander Becket, remains to be seen,” she said, handing him the gun with some care, the small smile still on her lips. There was a definite edge there. She was not one to be underestimated. And rightly so, if she was taking care of the ships in his very deck.

For some reason, it took a great amount of effort to pay attention to what he was doing with packing the weapons away. The job couldn’t be finished quickly enough. As he went to close the final box, though, he found Mako’s smaller hands slipping in, shifting the box away and storing it in one of the lockers. Unnoticed by him, she’d packed everything else away too. Yancy smiled.

“You’re just gonna make me permanently thank you, aren’t you Mori?” Yancy quipped, and she laughed.

“Perhaps,” she said, closing the lockers, her eyes drifting back to the fighters before she gestured towards them. “Would you like to see?” she asked. Yancy nodded.

“I’d love to,” he agreed. She lead the way over to the main area of the hangar bay, her pace slow. Yancy matched it, walking at her side as they moved into the proper space, the twelve fighters loosely arranged in a semi circle around the deck. Even up close, Yancy couldn’t quite get over it. They were like nothing he’d seen. Bigger than an average fighter, but still small, small enough to be manoeuvrable in a fight, and the design alone was something else. Yancy might have admired more, but it seemed everything from weaponry to the paint job was being stripped away and rebuilt.

“How much do you know about the PPDC program, Commander?” Mako asked, examining each of her precious cargo as they passed by. Yancy shrugged.

“Just that it was abandoned a few years ago. Brass said the concept didn’t hold up to scratch,” Yancy said. He wasn’t a pilot, but everyone had heard of the program. It had been quite the experiment. And it had failed equally spectacularly. Yancy hadn’t thought there were any of these ships left, let alone that they could still function.

“The concept itself is good. It’s like a unit of Marines. People work better in a group. The idea of being able to share experience, tactics, viewpoints, it’s a strong theory. And since it would seem the fight is taking to space…”

“It makes sense to bring it back,” Yancy concluded. “But if it failed last time, why would it be any different now?”

“We’re re-engineering the ships. Better systems - as good as we can make them, anyway. And then… I believe the Captain had a few ideas on how to improve the program,” Mako explained briefly.

“Still, to get these things up and running… that’ll take time, won’t it? I mean, at the very least I would want a dry dock, but I guess it’s not much of a secret if they’re in one place,” Yancy mused.

“You are an engineer too?”

“I meddle. Trained as a marine, though. Someone had to keep Raleigh from getting himself killed,” Yancy explained. Mako smiled.

“You work well together. You and your brother. The trust you have…”

“We’ve been through a lot. He’s all I have left these days,” Yancy explained.

“I understand,” she replied softly, and from the look in her eyes, Yancy knew she was being completely and utterly sincere. It was easy to forget how much he’d left behind, how much he’d lost. Maybe he’d taught himself to forget, because he needed to be there for Raleigh, because he needed to do his job. But it was even easier to forget that he wasn’t the only one that had lost things. The galaxy hadn’t been a happy place for a few years now. And Yancy had a feeling that it was going to get worse before it got better. If it got better.

But that was what this ship was all about, wasn’t it? Prototype fighters, rushed, secret refits… it was the sign of someone that wanted a secret weapon, and wanted an effective one. Some people didn’t want to believe in the Reapers, but Yancy had seen the devastation at the Citadel, heard all the stories of the machine descending into the station like a giant squashing an ant. People didn’t want to believe because reality was too terrible. But Yancy… the only way they would beat this was if they fought. And that was what they were doing here, on the Hong Kong. Fighting.

Meanwhile, Yancy would go back to command, and get sent on some useless fetch mission like the last. He was sure it was important, sure that whatever they’d collected would be important. But he also knew the Brass wasn’t willing to truly accept the Reapers as a threat. After all, they’d locked up Commander Shepard for trying to tell them exactly that. Even if she had made a few questionable actions, but Yancy knew the truth of that too. Sometimes you had to make the hard decisions, because there was no right option.

Either way, Yancy couldn’t help but admire all this. It really was quite something. Yancy sighed, pausing slightly in front of one of the fighters.

“I should let you get back to work. Go make sure my brother hasn’t passed into a coma or something,” Yancy said lightly, the regret colouring his tone.

“You’re welcome down here whenever you like, Commander Becket. We could always use the extra help,” Mako said lightly. Yancy smiled.

“Yancy,” he told her lightly. She smiled. “And I’d like that.”

“Then I’ll see you soon, Yancy,” she replied lightly, inclining her head.

“I’m sure you will, Engineer Mori.”

“Mako,” she replied, with a smile on her face.

“Mako,” Yancy repeated. He left her with a smile, and for a moment, he managed to forget that in a matter of days, all this would probably be over anyway.

* * *

“Tell me, how are the new recruits settling in?”

“They’re not kids, Stacker, they’ve done this before,” Herc Hansen stated flatly, looking at the Captain over his desk. Stacker Pentecost was busy doing something on the console at his desk - reports, ship logs, whatever the hell the man did with himself in this room all day. Captain’s quarters weren’t exactly huge, but there was a desk and a bed and it was more than most of the crew got. There was a room with actual bunk beds that had been allocated to the more superior officers on board. Apart from that, everyone else on rotation had to deal with the sleeper pods, which were basically upright plastic shells that saved on space. And Herc had never liked those things. Too much like a bug in a jar for his liking.

Herc leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, ankle to knee as he observed Stacker, sighing slightly. It was clear that his previous answer wasn’t nearly good enough. And Stacker didn’t accept much less than exactly what he wanted. “They’re fine,” he said eventually. Stacker nodded idly, his eyes on his console still. Herc hated it when he did that. “They’re just in transit, Stacker, they just need a ride to Omega or the Citadel or something,” Herc reminded him.

“They’re in transit now. That doesn’t mean they’ll be in transit forever,” Stacker commented. Herc narrowed his eyes slightly.

“What exactly are you gonna do?” he asked. Stacker finally looked up, his eyes serious as he met Herc’s enquiring gaze.

“I don’t need to do anything. I believe the better question is what they’re going to do,” Stacker replied smoothly. Herc sighed again, getting up for the chair to leave Stacker to whatever the hell he was planning.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Herc commented.

“I always do."


	6. Ground Control

“For a fighter unit, you guys seem to be doing a hell of a lot of ground missions.”

Raleigh couldn’t help but pass the comment, sitting in the shuttle on their way back into the atmosphere of yet another forgotten planet. He had assumed that when they got onto Stacker’s ship, it would be a straight shot back to wherever the hell the Alliance wanted them. But Stacker hadn’t once mentioned going to Omega or any kind of space port. In fact, the first time the senior crew had been in one room at the same time was when Stacker had called them all to the conference room for the briefing on this very mission. Raleigh had been considerably confused as to why he, Yancy and the Wei triplets had been invited, but it made a lot more sense now. Stacker didn’t have a complement of marines, didn’t have a hell of a lot of people with ground experience, let alone the required training. The group they’d collected from Fehl Prime was the best they had for that sort of thing. Especially since part of the deal was if they did this job, they’d get dropped off at Omega.

Raleigh had held his tongue at that, and let Yancy be the diplomat. Omega wasn’t a favour. The space station was crawling with criminals and gangsters and Alliance types were not welcome. That included N7s. At least the Weis had custom armour, Raleigh and Yancy both wore the standard black hardsuits, emblazoned with the red stripe and N7 logo. They were not going to be able to go quietly, especially since Omega was the sort of place that really required armour, since there was about an 85% chance of being randomly shot at. But Raleigh supposed anything was better than being stuck on Fehl Prime, Omega included. They owed Stacker and Herc a favour, and Pentecost sure as hell knew it. And he was calling them out on it before they could forget. Raleigh had half expected him to hold out on it. People liked having N7s in their pocket, but Raleigh guessed that thanks to Herc, Stacker already had an in for the future. That was the thing about being a nice guy and having friends - or at the very least allies. It was very, very hard to say no.

Either way they were on the shuttle and heading down for the mission, and that was the end of it. Raleigh was glad these things had been designed big. Raleigh usually only worked in teams of six or so at most. There were eight of them in the shuttle, even if two of them were pilots and one was an engineer. It was quite the eclectic group. Raleigh wanted to have his doubts. But he had no reason to have any. He supposed it was just pre-drop jitters. An untested team was always interesting, to say the least. It was going to take time to work out a pattern, a technique. Time that Raleigh wasn’t sure they had.

The plan was easy. There was an old development lab out in the Terminus - not Alliance, but some sort of private industry - that had files on new tech. The kind of tech developed from the bits and pieces that had been collected from the Citadel, after the Reaper attack. Thanks to some rather entrepreneurial mercenaries, the place was more or less abandoned, and completely under their control. All their job entailed was going in, getting whatever was left of the data, and getting out. That was it. If there were any spare parts or materials, they would bring them back, which was why they’d brought Mako along. She could choose what she liked from whatever they found. It was simple. Maybe there would be a few mercs waiting for them, but they weren’t expecting an army. The whole mission was a long shot, but according to the intel, the mercs had only taken the lab in the last few days at most. It would take a while for them to pick the place clean - they still had time, but not much. Not enough.

So now Raleigh was on the shuttle, waiting to hit the ground, with not enough intel and a distinct feeling of pressure that he was used to by now. It came with every mission he did, since every mission was high stakes for an N7. He was as externally calm as ever, as was his brother. The Weis seemed to be holding it together nicely too, and Herc and Mako were busy bringing them into the landing zone. Chuck, however?

“Actually, this is only our second mission, _sir_ ,” the younger man said, a new stiffness to his tone. Raleigh resisted the urge to sigh. He didn’t know what was quite going on there. All he’d noticed was Stacker referring to the Beckets as Lieutenant Commanders in the mission briefing and Chuck’s eyes looking like they were about to pop out of his head. Raleigh had wondered why, but there hadn’t been time to talk. He’d needed to suit up and grab some fresh supplies, and before there’d been a chance to say anything, they were in the shuttle and heading for the ground.

Ever since the meeting, though, Chuck Hansen had phased completely from insubordinate little shit to acting like someone had shoved bamboo splints under his nails and hammered a steel rod through his spine, and Raleigh didn’t get it. Last time he’d seen the younger Hansen was in the mess when he’d basically insulted him, and that was a whole day ago. And that was despite the fact they were bunking in the same room. There was a decent sized room on the crew deck with actual bunks arranged around the outside of them, and little curtains for some sort of privacy. The beds were almost built into the wall, so it was good. Better than most ships he’d been on, anyway. There weren’t so many occupants either. Stacker had reserved the room for whoever he deemed senior crew, which was a short list to begin with. But then Herc had his own quarters, an extremely small office for the Executive Officer, or XO, effectively the second in command of the ship. The lead science techs, Geizler and Gottlieb, had set up accommodation beside the science lab they’d set up at the back of the command deck, in two even smaller store rooms they’d cleared out and somehow crushed beds into. Something about long experiments and odd hours. Stacker wasn’t exactly running the ship at capacity, so it slid by without comment. A skeleton crew took up less space than a full complement anyway.

That left the bunk room’s current occupants as Chuck, Mako, and the new arrivals of Yancy, Raleigh and the Wei triplets. And yet despite the fact Raleigh was sleeping in the same room as the Australian, one of the bunks had already been occupied when he arrived that night to catch some sleep, and it had been empty by the time he woke the next morning. Which was almost impressive, as Raleigh didn’t exactly sleep for half a day or anything. Raleigh hadn’t really wondered if Chuck had been avoiding him, but now… Well, given his first words since that day in the mess included a ‘sir’ and a sense of formality, he had to wonder what the hell had gone on.

Now, however, was not the best time to try and find out.

“You boys ready back there?” Herc’s voice called from the pilot’s seat, and Raleigh glanced over at his brother, sharing a quick nod with Yancy. Yeah, they were ready. They were always ready. That was what came from being N7 grade. You didn’t have the privilege of _not_ being ready, not once, not ever. Being unprepared was as good as signing your own death warrant. And the Beckets... well, that fate was best avoided.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Yancy voiced, and Raleigh checked his gun as he felt the shuttle coming to ground, the landing gear making their descent as smooth as possible. That and the skill of their pilot. But Raleigh had never denied the skills of Herc Hansen. He’d seen the man in action once, and both Beckets had earned a certain sense of respect for the older man that day. A sense of respect that still stood. They didn’t just listen to Herc’s orders because he technically outranked them, as he was a Wing Commander and they were both Lieutenant Commanders. Raleigh would be the first to say he wasn’t afraid to complain about bullshit, even to an Admiral if need be. But Herc had proved himself, and he made good calls. Raleigh was willing to trust him. That was important in a team. Trust. And whilst he might trust Herc, the Weis and Mako easily enough, Raleigh knew that Chuck was going to cause him more than one heart attack. Trust wasn’t just about having faith that the other guy would watch your back. It was having faith he wouldn’t make his best attempt at getting himself killed, and Chuck… Raleigh had the feeling he didn’t have as much experience in a fight out of a pilot’s chair as he did in it, and it showed. And Raleigh didn’t have time to train him to fight better. Not in this sort of situation.

The shuttle doors popped open as they touched down, and the Weis were already at the open hatch, checking the area. They were fairly far out, in the hopes that it would be a safer rendezvous point for them to return. Herc had already agreed to stay with the shuttle, though. Raleigh didn’t want another Fehl Prime, and Herc seemed to respect that, along with the fact this was an infinitely more dangerous situation. Didn’t mean that Herc hadn’t had a hand in coming up with the mission plan, as they studied the schematics Tendo had ‘found’ for them. Raleigh was still suspicious of where the pilot had found them, exactly, but Tendo Choi was also one of his brother’s best friends. Tendo and Yancy went way back, back to the early days of basic training. He was relatively sure they’d used to go out drinking and picking up girls together, whilst Raleigh was still in biotic bootcamp. Yancy’s face when he’d met Stacker’s pilot for the cruiser itself had been golden. He didn’t think he’d seen his brother so delighted in a while.

That was probably a bad sign. He feared for the day when Tendo and Yancy made it to the Citadel together. Or even Omega. Bars on Omega were just as full of alcohol as those on the Citadel. The Citadel was the shining jewel, the galactic capital of space. The only difference between it and Omega was that the Citadel was richer, more polished, and far more expensive. It also had a lower fatality rate. Which, frankly, Raleigh counted as a major plus point.

Raleigh moved to the open doors, leading the way out into the open air, the lush green surroundings screaming out an image of supposed paradise. Raleigh knew better, though. If it looked like paradise, he only got all the more suspicious. Clear blue skies, softly swaying palm trees and crystal blue waters were generally a bad sign. Usually meant they were hiding something. It was a good rule to live by - the prettier the planet, the more expectant you should be of something going wrong. Stepping outside, he checked their immediate surroundings, not giving the signal until he was sure it was clear. Once he did so, Yancy and Chuck followed him out of the shuttle, Mako hovering near the doors. Raleigh looked back to the Weis and their engineer, nodding. They’d already settled on leaving a gap for the Beckets and Chuck to clear out the first area before the Weis would move up, letting Mako pick through whatever was behind them. The Weis would look after her, and guard their six. It was a good plan. They already had the route mapped out, they had comms open and active, they had contingency after contingency. There could be no surprises. In theory.

“See you on the other side, boys,” Herc said over the comms, and Raleigh half saluted at the window where he could see Herc, nodding to the group at the door. They all knew the plan. There was no point in words. Not when they’d already said everything that needed saying.

Settling into point, Raleigh felt Yancy and Chuck at his back, heading towards the complex, taking caution. Raleigh ducked into cover as they finally caught sight of the research facility, using the trees as cover. There were only two guards outside, and they’d deliberately chosen a back entrance for that very reason. But Raleigh frowned slightly as he raised his pistol, using the scope to get a better look at the armour the guards were wearing.

“Yance,” Raleigh summoned under his breath, waiting as Chuck and Yancy settled in on either side of him. “Take a look at the armour.”

Yancy raised his rifle, adjusting the sights as his eyes adjusted to the field of vision. A frown settled on Yancy’s brow, as he studied it. He didn’t drop the rifle, instead speaking with the gun still settled into position.

“Same as Fehl Prime,” Yancy murmured, and Raleigh nodded. Chuck frowned too, the expression looking downright adorable on him. _Not now, Becket_ , Raleigh reminded himself fiercely. Why was it always in the middle of a live op?

Probably because Chuck hadn’t said anything dumb and insulting yet.

“What does that mean?”

“Means there’s something going on here, and I’d like to know what,” Yancy muttered, his hands checking the clip on the gun as he levelled the sights.

“You think we can get close enough for an interrogation?” Raleigh asked. Yancy glanced sideways at his brother and the youngest Hansen, before assessing the terrain.

“Let’s try the fox and hound. If it doesn’t work, just drop ‘em. Hansen, stay with me,” Yancy instructed. Raleigh nodded, slipping backwards and moving to the right, looping around, staying out of sight of the guards. Raleigh and Yancy had named a few of their strategies a long time ago, trying to make it easier to call on the field. They worked together so often that they could afford to do so, and as much as Raleigh could be a little unpredictable, sometimes it was good to have a set play. This was one of them. So Raleigh pushed forward, getting as close as he dared before grabbing a rock, and hurling it at one of the walls nearby. The guards started, instantly moving towards the noise. Raleigh waited until they got close enough, slipping around the corner and out of cover, into their direct sights, spraying pistol fire their way, only deliberately aiming at the ground. It was enough to get their attention.

Then he ran for it.

He adjusted his path to where he knew Yancy would be waiting with Chuck, and didn’t look back. He didn’t stop running until he heard the duel thunks, the two guys falling to the deck like rocks. Raleigh looked back, grinning, the pistol still in his hand. “Nice work,” Raleigh complimented them. Yancy just rolled his eyes, reaching down to haul off the helmet of one of the guys, crouching down to meet his eyes.

“Who do you work for?” Yancy pressed. But an answer never came. Within moments the guy was choking, mouth moving in a silent scream and Yancy stumbled back and all three watched in horror as the smell of burning chemicals came through the air, blood bubbling at his mouth.

“Holy shit. Did he just..?” Raleigh asked.

“Yeah,” Yancy confirmed. Most mercs weren’t the types to commit suicide on capture, or even the threat of capture. Chuck was the one to cautiously approach the second man, who was just as dead as the first. The three of them shared a look, and Raleigh’s eyes slid over the white armour plating, and that little logo on the breastplate. Part of him thought he should know this, should know exactly what was going on. Mostly, though, he had no clue. And it irritated him more than he had words for. He didn’t like being on the back foot. This was almost certainly the back foot.

“We should keep moving,” Yancy pressed, leading the way forward. Raleigh sighed, stepping forward, but Chuck seemed to hesitate a little more. Raleigh paused, watching the younger man for a moment.

“Hey. You good?” Raleigh asked. Startled, Chuck looked up, shaking his head slightly as if he was coming back to reality. Tightening his grip on his gun, he nodded.

“Just fine, sir,” Chuck muttered, brushing past him. Raleigh resisted the urge to groan, instead watching the retreating back of Chuck Hansen’s khaki armour plating.

He did have a really nice ass in that armour.

Raleigh reminded himself this really wasn’t the time, and that Chuck Hansen had already proved himself to be quite the confusing little shit and that he didn’t have the time or the effort necessary for him. After all, after this job they were going to Omega, a journey that would take less than a day. Not really time for considering such ideas.

Especially not with Herc Hansen’s son.

Moving towards the back door, Raleigh found that Yancy had already cracked the lock by the time he made it over there, a look of smug pride on his face. Raleigh resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead nudging his brother with his shoulder, the plates of their hardsuits clacking at the contact. “C’mon, let’s get this over with,” Raleigh suggested. Yancy really did roll his eyes then, reaching for his gun, raising it before leading the way inside.

It was too quiet.

The labs were cold and sterile, but not in a disused way. More in the kind of way where they’d been abandoned at short notice. Some things were beeping and squawking in protest, having been left running for longer than they were meant to be. It was like someone had left in a hurry. And recently, too. Raleigh didn’t like it. It didn’t sit right. So he kept his guard up, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yancy do the same.

Chuck, however, did not.

“Where is everyone?” he asked idly, wandering out of formation, his assault rifle held limply at his side. Raleigh turned, sharing a look with his brother. They were long experienced at non-verbal communication, and Yancy nodded, moving off slightly, Raleigh keeping position in the middle of the room. They’d worked all that out in one look, and one look only. They were good at this. They were used to it. It was why they worked so well together.

“I have the feeling we’re going to find out,” Raleigh murmured, his eyes skimming around the edge of the room. Two doors, but it looked silent enough. Raleigh knew better than to trust that.

“Beckets, are we clear to move in?” The voice was over the comm, one of the Weis. Raleigh sighed, looking around. It really did seem quiet enough. Raleigh lowered his pistol, his eyes still skimming the room.

“We’re through the doors, all clear for-”

It was as if his words were the signal for everything to go belly up. The bullets fell like rain, and before long, the world was little more than a blur of guns and biotics.

* * *

“Ow, shit, hey Becket I’m _fine_ ,” Chuck hissed, wrenching his arm away from Raleigh, a glare in his eyes. Raleigh sighed, throwing his hands up in defeat, backing off slightly as he continued to strip off armour plating. The mission had not gone as planned, needless to say. It seemed that no matter how many contingencies you had, something was going to fuck up somewhere along the line. Not that Raleigh blamed Chuck. The mercenaries had come on heavy and he was just a rookie. His shields had dipped at the wrong moment. It happened. He was just lucky his hardsuit had taken most of the damage. He’d be fine in a few days. That was what was important.

Raleigh had only just backed off when Herc arrived, filling the concerned parent role with a certain flare that made Raleigh smile as Chuck glared once more. Chuck put up a good front, and he’d sure as hell held his own on the ground, but in reality? He was more a bratty teenager than a hardened marine, and well, it was nice. Raleigh spent a lot of time with marines, after all.

Turning away, Raleigh reached for the clips of more of his armour, packing into the crate nearby that he’d need to take back to the armoury later. Yancy was nearby, looking decidedly worried, but Raleigh waited until he’d successfully stripped down to his base layer before approaching his brother, tugging on the uniforms that were all they had until they managed to get back to the Citadel and the crappy apartment they had there. It was mostly a place to hole up their things, but it would be nice to pick some stuff up. Raleigh was just looking forward to not needing to rely on charity. But clothes were hardly their biggest concern right now.

“You ready to go, kid?” Yancy asked. Raleigh nodded, tying off his bootlaces. The two of them had already agreed that the data they’d recovered - or what was left of it - was definitely worth looking into, and soon. Stacker had already ordered them to the conference room on Deck 1, even if Tendo had been the one to convey the message. No one had been in the mood to complain. It hadn’t quite been a shitstorm, but none of them had gone in there prepared for the army of mercenaries they were faced with, not to mention their precision. Raleigh hadn’t seen mercenaries so well trained in a long time.

He was beginning to doubt they were casual mercs at all.

When they made it to the conference room, Stacker was already there, and Yancy was quick to open up his omnitool and transfer the data to the holo display, the images and files appearing in perfect detail. They hadn’t had time to examine things on the ground, not in a situation so hot. They’d been forced to get an upload of the entire database and run for it. It had been close. Closer than Raleigh would have liked, anyway. They were lucky they had any salvage at all.

“What have we got, gentlemen?” Stacker asked, but Yancy was already flipping through files, frowning slightly.

“We’ve got something. Schematics, details, equations… too much for me to work out though,” Yancy confessed. He tried, but Yancy had never been trained for that level of engineering. Not that Raleigh didn’t think his brother was talented. But he didn’t know everything. Stacker nodded.

“I’ll request Doctors Geizler and Gottlieb look it over. In the meantime-”

Stacker never got to finish. Yancy had stumbled across what looked like a video feed of some sort, which was playing on the holoscreen. Raleigh looked to it, frowning. It looked like some sort of security footage. Footage from the facility. It was as if someone was trying to tell the world what had happened at the facility, because it was a perfect montage of Raleigh’s worst nightmares.

“Are they...?” Raleigh couldn’t bring himself to finish the question. Yancy could.

“Executing the scientists. Those mercs weren’t lucky, they took the place by force,” Yancy concluded.

“What the hell were they there for?”

“You copied their entire hard drive, Commander Becket?” Stacker asked sharply. Yancy nodded.

“Everything that wasn’t corrupt or deleted.”

“We’ll go through the files, see if we can’t work out what was so important,” Stacker informed them. Raleigh shook his head slightly.

“This isn’t supposed to happen. The Alliance…”

“The Alliance knows, Commander Becket. The Alliance knows things like this happen every day, and it does nothing to help because it says it is not their problem. Just like it says the Reapers aren’t their problem, as if they are hoping someone else might come along and fix the mess for them,” Stacker interrupted sharply. Raleigh’s eyes drifted to the Captain of the ship, and he was suddenly struck by the fact that Pentecost wasn’t adrift out here. This ship was out with Alliance command, and he was flourishing. He knew what he was doing. He had a purpose. Right now, that purpose seemed a hell of a lot better than anything the Alliance had sent them on in the last six months, surveying moons and heaps of space rock, fetching files and rock samples, along with dealing with the occasional terrorist that might cause a political shitstorm.

If the galaxy really was going to end, Raleigh did not want to sit by and watch it burn.

“You think it’s real, then? Harbinger of Death and all that stuff?” Raleigh couldn’t help but ask. Stacker fixed him with a stare that made even him quake, biotic powers and all.

“It’s real, Commander Becket. The universe as you know it is coming to an end, and we will lose this war unless we’re prepared to fight it. So the question is, Commander Becket, where would you rather die? On some backwater planet doing another retrieval for Alliance Command, or here?”

Stacker let the question hang for a moment, and then he was gone. Raleigh shared a look with his brother, who was still hovering by the console. Raleigh knew what he wanted to say. He just wasn’t sure if Yancy was going to like it. There was a long few seconds where they seemed to communicate by telepathy. And then Yancy sighed.

“Rals…”

“C’mon, Yance, he’s got a point. Even if all this galactic doom stuff is bullshit, _that_ is worth fighting,” Raleigh pointed out, gesturing to the screen.

“We’re Alliance, Rals. We’re _N7_. You can’t just bail out because there’s a better offer.”

“Bullshit. Half this ship did. Besides, we’ll get away with it _because_ we’re N7.” There was a long pause as Yancy seemed to reluctantly consider it. “C’mon, Yance. It’s good here. Besides, I know you wanna see those birds on the hangar deck fly.”

“That’s not a good enough reason,” Yancy pointed out weakly.

“And fighting the Reapers isn’t either?” Raleigh retorted. “Besides, Herc said one of the Admirals tossed Stacker a bone with all this. All we need to do is find out which one and he can sign off the paperwork for black ops. It’s that easy.”

“You seriously think an Admiral is gonna give us a black card just because we ask for it?”

“They gave Stacker 12 prototype ships, a cruiser, and a crew for it all _without_ him asking. Yeah, I think they’ll put a signature on the bottom of our files and stick with plausible deniability about it all.”

Yancy sighed. Raleigh could almost see him caving.

“C’mon, old man, live a little. You know you want to.”

“Okay, okay, fine. But only if we get it signed off. And I swear to god, if the Reapers don’t show up I’m gonna kick your ass out the airlock.” Raleigh grinned. He knew Yancy had been ready to crumble. Yancy was just more about the regulations than he was. But then again. They wouldn’t have worked well together if they were both totally reckless little shits.

That right was reserved for the younger of the pair.

“Stop looking so happy, this is like fighting a Krogan with a water pistol,” Yancy quipped, closing the files and already trying to dial up Alliance Command.

“That would definitely be worth trying,” Raleigh replied.

“You’d get your spine crushed in five seconds, Rals,” Yancy told him, a soft smile on his face.

“Biotic!” Raleigh reminded him. Yancy cracked a real smile.

“Fine. Six.”

The magnitude of what they’d just agreed to hadn’t quite hit Raleigh yet. It would. But later.

And by then, turning back would be completely unthinkable.


End file.
